Yamame Kurodani
“What’s the freakin’ situaaation?” General Information Yamame is a tsuchigumo – an earth spider – with the ability to manipulate diseases. She first appeared as the Stage 1 boss in Subterranean Animism, then as a stage 3 target in Double Spoiler and as a background character in Hopeless Masquerade. She generally prefers not to use said ability, though, and she has an outgoing nature and a love of fighting. Other youkai like her for her bright personality, but humans stay away because of her ability. In addition, as a tsuchigumo, she is well-suited for building construction due to her physical strength and that of her string. However, she can be reasoned with, unlike most other characters who’ve had boss fights. Personality She tends to be somewhat easy going, most of the time being a bit reclusive, as most spiders tend to be, though she is not so reclusive as to hide away at all times, or react violently to people entering her area of living. She does enjoy fighting, though she does not purposefully seek a fight over everything else, and won’t fight solely for the purpose of fighting. Yamame is protective of all of her friends, even ones she just met. She would do anything for whoever she cares for. Abilities Yamame can fire out spider-like webs, where in Double Spoiler, Aya Shameimaru commented that "tsuchigumo are quite skilled and strong, and particularly good with architecture". Yamame is a strategic and defensive fighter, instead of being an offensive fighter like most other characters. Yamame's ability is manipulation of illness and diseases, with a specialization in infectious ones. The amount of viruses and germs being quite strong, that they infect the atmosphere, and are highly lethal. It can be said to be a natural enemy to humans, who are based upon living in groups. However, with the sensibility of not unreasonably inflicting illness, she herself doesn't have that sort of intention of using it often at all; this is probably due to being tormented with the experience of having inflicted disease on attacking humans in the far past. It‘s partially implied in Symposium of Post-mysticism that the main disease she manipulates is influenza, as the only identifiable common symptom is a high fever, and the symptoms themselves change from year to year. It is further implied by the footnote which says that the sickness is called different things each year and even given "types". As a side note, Eirin Yagokoro is apparently attempting to create a "miracle drug" to cure this specific disease. Story She went around on the surface world for a long time, visiting homes, making inhabitants sick while only slightly revealing herself, though she grew bored. It didn’t feel right. People were already afraid of falling ill, so why push them to the point where they would kill the sick instead of make them better? It wouldn’t make sense to do that, then you get less people to make sick. After that point, she only made a disease and spread it around every so often, instead of all the time (somewhat similar to the flu). She decided to take on her more human appearance as dominant, as well as coming clean to what she did. She simply said that she was responsible, and provided proof, though the punishment was much more severe than what she anticipated. She was forced to flee from the humans, and hide, to allow her more of a chance to get away. She found refuge in a cave, where she clung to the ceiling of a particularly hard to reach area until the humans had left. She constructed webs in the cave, though only temporary ones, thinking that the humans would be back again. She stayed there for just over a day, before moving on again, searching for another secluded area that she could hunker down in and call home. Eventually, she came to live in the tunnel/cave system that lead to the underworld, specifically in a side tunnel, just before Parsee’s bridge going on, just after coming out (this will be covered more momentarily). She stayed there for a few years on her own, observing the bridge, making a nest, and capturing prey for basic sustenance, releasing a disease to the outside world once per year, either by contaminating the water, or the food supply. One day, she noticed a human wandering into the tunnel, looking angered, and hateful. At first, she paid the human no mind, thinking some Youkai or animal would get her, if she didn’t go home soon. Dismissing the thoughts, she returned to the center of her nest to rest, and wait for something to wander into the web. After a few more days, she made her way to the mouth of her own little tunnel again, and much to her surprise, the human still sat at the bridge. The rage and the hate had faded, and in its stead was jealousy. As she watched the girl, she couldn't help but have the very same feelings begin to well up inside her, though she pushed them down as best she could, as she turned back around, and returned to digging out the tunnel that was her home even further. When she returned to the mouth of her tunnel again, the human was still there. It continued like this for just over a week. She decided to show mercy, seeing as how the animals and Youkai avoided her. Yamame, feeling sympathy for the human, as well as taking pity, gathered some bugs, rodents, birds, a meager meal, but a meal nonetheless. Things continued like that, for a time, Yamame mostly ignoring Parsee’s increasingly hostile attitude. But, when Parsee finally jumped the gap from human to Youkai, Yamame withdrew, a sense of a sort of fear, self preservation, and a feeling of accomplishment (seeing as she helped to keep Parsee alive). After that, Yamame returned to her usual life, digging her tunnels, making her nest, and distributing a yearly disease. During the events of Subterranean Animism, she mistook the heroine as a youkai from the surface and attacked; she was defeated quickly. In Double Spoiler, Yamame used a few spell cards and had Aya Shameimaru and Hatate Himekaidou taking photos of her and her danmaku. Yamame made a background cameo appearance in Hopeless Masquerade on the Palace of Earth Spirits stage. She is seen at the top of the screen upside-down. Yamame’s first appearance in Everquest was in the Rin Satsuki arc, where she directed the heroes towards the source of the geysers in the Subterranean Animism event. She made a few more minor appearance afterwards. She was mostly seen or heard of in situations with Lumina, as the two of them keep accidentally hurting each other. One day, it was revealed that she was the manager of the bread bank, because of Cirno having an overdue payment. Yamame joined the other heroes for the Castle Crashers event to see what was going on, and to see how everyone was doing. In one of the boss fights, she used her strings to destroy the enemy’s healing source, while the other heroes were busy fighting the boss, and the boss was distracted. In the final boss fight, she used a web to hold the Evil Wizard in place so Lucario could land a powerful attack on him. Lucario succeeded, but Yamame also got hit and injured from the blast. Even after that, she kept going, making sure everyone was okay. The heroes escaped the other dimension with a portal, ending up back on the bridge in the sky where they started. They ran across the bridge while it became unstable, threatening to fall at any moment. Yamame used her webs to keep the bridge up so everyone could escape. Right before she was able to escape, the bridge fell. Yamame died from the impact of falling onto the bridge after it hit the ground. Rekationships Residents of the Underworld Kisume is Yamame’s best friend and co-worker. Yamame has known Parsee for a long time, and she met Yuugi and befriended her for how popular she became in the underworld. Lumina Incandesce When they first met, it was when Lumina got caught in one of her webs. Yamame tried to free her, but Lumina accidentally got scared and attacked Yamame, which resulted in the spider doing the same, but instead of a normal attack, she accidentally made Lumina sick. They’ve moved on from that occurrence, and since then, they’ve been good friends, getting along well, even if the same thing happens sometimes. Category:Stage One Boss Category:Heroes